Finance Bill

Ian Swales Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

Some of those things were tried in the past by the previous Administration—incentives for people to stop smoking, for instance. That is not what I am talking about, and I think you might well say, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I was out of order if I started to drift on to those subjects. One of the great things about today’s debate, of course, is that we have all night to scrutinise the Bill. One of the benefits of having no programming is that nobody can stop our discussions, and so far there has not been any filibustering.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

Clearly we have a financial problem in this country. Has my hon. Friend made any assessment of the number of people who do not currently sign up for private medical insurance but would be likely to do so in order to establish the costs of the new clause?

[Mr Bone]

The proposal applies to retired people, so I think that it will affect people who have private medical insurance through their companies or who can afford to have it while they are employed, but who drop it when they retire, at the very time when they are most expensive to the national health service. The more people we can encourage to take it up, the better.

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[Jonathan Edwards]

We will have to wait and see. I just hope that my words are powerful enough to entice them to come through the Lobby with us, but I am afraid we will have to wait until a little later in the evening.

I was talking about one positive reason for a temporary VAT cut, but that would not be my main, or only, consideration. The purpose behind the cut would be to help the millions of ordinary people who would benefit from not having to pay those extra pennies and pounds every day to the Government, which they could then use to spend or save elsewhere as they saw fit. They could spend them on other goods and stimulate the economy in that way or they could keep them to pay off their debts. At the moment, many costs have been factored into the margins of businesses and many businesses have not yet raised their prices to meet this new inflation from both VAT and other spending increases. If we can keep prices down through the use of a temporary VAT cut and keep high street prices down with it, we will help families. On the other hand, if we can secure the margins for shops and companies, we will help business. I hope that Government Members will agree with that point. Either scenario would be a win-win situation for families and business. Negating a key element of inflationary pressure would also enable monetary policy to be kept loose for longer, which I would imagine is a key objective for the Treasury and the Monetary Policy Committee.

In closing last year’s debate on the effect that the VAT increase would have on the budgets of public sector organisations, the devolved Governments and charities, I asked the Government what analysis they had made of the impact that increasing VAT would have on the operating costs of those bodies, as one study had estimated that increasing VAT would cost charities alone an extra £150 million per annum. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed that specific point in winding up. We will be pushing for a division on new clause 9, as it would introduce a temporary reduction and is more likely to generate support across the House. New clause 6 would be our preferred solution in the long term, but I will not push it to a vote tonight.

[Ian Swales]

I rise to speak against new clause 6 and I note that we have had no costings from its proposer, the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). I would be interested to find out what he thinks the policy would cost. I can report that there was no dancing in the streets of Redcar when the VAT was reduced from 17.5% to 15%, and neither have we had riots in the streets about the rises from 15% to 17.5% and then to 20%.

[Ian Lucas]

There may not have been dancing in the streets, but after that reduction in VAT there was economic growth—something that has not happened as a result of the hon. Gentleman’s new-found friends’ policy, which he is now following, but which he refuted and rejected in order to get elected.

[Ian Swales]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I believe that the policy that his Government followed cost £12 billion; it would be difficult to spend £12 billion and not give some stimulus to the economy. I shall come to my view on that in a moment.

There was hysteria about the VAT rate among Labour Members, but if people in the street were not shouting about it, it is worth asking why. Our predecessors in this place knew that putting VAT on everything would be a very regressive measure, so they did not do that. They recognised that the basic costs of living should be VAT-free. In fact, when it was first introduced in 1979, some reporters described it as a luxury tax. Let us just think about all the things that are VAT-free: rent, mortgages, council tax, water costs, fares on buses, trains and planes, prescriptions, dental and optical care, newspapers, magazines, books, betting, bingo, the lottery, postage, TV licences, children’s clothes and shoes and, above all, food. Although gas and electricity were originally VAT-free, they now have a fixed VAT rate of 5%.

[Ian Lucas]

Because of the Labour Government.

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[Ian Swales]

Yes, absolutely. This Government have made no changes on any of those items, nor will the new clause lower the cost of those items. Of course, that list covers the vast bulk of the weekly bills of lower-income families and pensioners. In fact, I am sure that many pensioners do not pay any standard VAT in many a typical week.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is hard to know where to start, given the number of areas on which the hon. Gentleman is wrong, but let me just point out one. The increase in VAT affects the cost of absolutely everything. As it is on fuel, it adds to the cost of getting food to our properties. VAT impacts on the cost of every single thing. It is an indiscriminate tax that hits the pensioner, the unemployed, and the single mother just the same is it does the millionaire in his castle.

[Ian Swales]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I just read out a long list of items that are VAT-free; that was the point of what I was saying.

[Clive Efford]

Those items were VAT-free when the hon. Gentleman made his pledge at the general election. When he stood for election, he said that the poorest people in society were affected most by increases in VAT, and that it was therefore a regressive tax. He was right then, and that point is still right now. Why, then, is it correct and appropriate for the poorest people in our communities to pay for the deficit that was run up by the richest bankers in the country?

[Ian Swales]

The hon. Gentleman has strayed off the topic of the new clause, but on my party’s policy on VAT, obviously we are between a rock and a hard place, due to the economic state of the country. We had some very difficult choices to make, and a progressive expenditure tax is the right answer.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

My hon. Friend points out that difficult choices had to be made; indeed, they would undoubtedly have had to be made if a Labour Government had been returned. Does he recall that it was the policy of the last Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer to raise VAT to 19%?

[Ian Swales]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for reminding me of that fact. One of the things that have been absent from Labour Members is alternative policies to those being pursued by the Government.

The week after VAT was reduced by 2.5%, Cristiano Ronaldo, the premiership footballer, saved £4,000 on the cost of his new Ferrari. He will also have made massive savings on many of his other purchases during that period. I doubt whether any constituent of mine saved £4,000 as a result of VAT being reduced.

VAT as applied in this country is a progressive tax on spending. The more people spend, the more they pay, so the inconvenient truth is that cuts in VAT benefit people in proportion to how wealthy they are.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that when Save the Children says that

“the discount rate and exemptions doesn’t take into account the incomes of people buying goods and services—so they are not enough to make VAT fairer”,

Save the Children has got it wrong?

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[Ian Swales]

I understand that charities have an issue with VAT, and I understand that Save the Children is right in its analysis. I am talking about the effect on personal spending.

The concept of a progressive spending tax is well understood across Europe. New clause 6 would take VAT in the UK back to a level where, among EU countries, only Cyprus and Luxembourg would have a lower rate. We have not heard from the Opposition parties how they plan to finance the cut in VAT.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Gentleman think of any other way in which people who can afford a Ferrari could contribute to the tax system?

[Ian Swales]

Well, £4,000 extra VAT is obviously one way that they are contributing as a result of this Government’s policies.

The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) said in the previous debate that the important focus of the tax and benefit system is on need and alleviation of poverty. I believe that VAT increases, which impact on the wealthy more than on the poor, are a good way of doing that.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman keeps referring to VAT as a progressive tax. It is a flat tax, proportionate all the way up the income scale. Progressive taxes have increasing rates at higher incomes.

[Ian Swales]

Technically, VAT is a progressive spending tax because the average rate paid increases the more one spends. That is the definition of a progressive tax.

[Kate Green]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that in relation to the proportion of a household income rather than its expenditure, VAT is a regressive tax? That is why we on the Opposition Benches are opposed to it.

[Ian Swales]

No, I do not accept that, because of the long list of items that are VAT-free. If everything had VAT applied, I would agree with the hon. Lady.

We have had no view about how the Opposition would fund the proposed cut in VAT. If they wished to borrow, which presumably is the answer, there are many options which are fairer to pensioners and the less well-off and more likely to encourage economic growth. Reducing VAT would be a flawed policy, just as it was last time, and I urge the House to reject new clause 6.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I shall speak to new clause 10, but before I do so, may I remind the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) that he fought an election on the Tory tax bombshell? I remember pictures of the Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), standing in front of a poster that referred to a Tory tax bombshell—

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[Mr Hanson]

My hon. Friend’s region of Yorkshire and Humberside has a 9.2% unemployment rate overall, compared with 5.7% in the south-east of England. For someone who is unemployed, the figure is 100% wherever they are. Nevertheless, there are regions of the United Kingdom where many people are chasing jobs, there is a lack of consumer confidence, traditional manufacturing and the retail industry are being hit by a lack of demand, and growth is not occurring, and the VAT increase has been damaging to all those things.

[Ian Swales]

I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech and that of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). Neither has contained details of the cost of such a reduction in VAT. Once we know that figure, we will be able to give many ways in which our economy could be stimulated with such an amount of money. We are still not sure where it is coming from. Reducing the price of Italian sports cars and round-the-world cruises is only one option.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will give way to one of my friends from the north-east, who I am sure has something relevant to say.

[Ian Swales]

As a fellow north-east Member, I congratulate the hon. Lady on her speech. I believe that the previous VAT cut cost £12 billion. She makes a persuasive case for the need to stimulate the economy. Does she think that borrowing £12 billion and then cutting VAT is the best option from all the choices available?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The fact is that the current rate of 20% is hurting, and it is not working. Growth has stalled. We need to return to growth, particularly in the north-east, and I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would support such a move.

A sector that has faced particular difficulties over recent months and years is the construction industry. It is thought that one in five of the firms going into administration are from that sector, and research recently undertaken by the Financial Times has found that construction orders have fallen by 40% in the past 12 months. That is an alarming figure. It is really worrying, when we consider that construction makes up around 10% of the UK economy, and that some 80% of the materials used by the industry are procured from within the UK, creating an economic stimulus and jobs in other sectors.

The construction industry is one clear example of how public spending can support private sector growth and jobs. Indeed, it is estimated that every £1 spent on construction leads to an increase in gross domestic product of nearly £3 and stimulates growth elsewhere in the economy worth nearly £2. The maths is simple. It is widely accepted that coalition decisions to cancel projects such as Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme, to cut the housing and regeneration budget by 70%, to end the HomeBuy Direct scheme, and to scrap regional spatial strategies, are having, and will continue to have, a seriously detrimental effect on the construction sector.

The coalition’s VAT rise is also having a considerable adverse impact on many small and medium-sized construction firms, particularly when combined with the draconian cuts that the Government are imposing on public spending. Indeed, at the time of the VAT rise the Federation of Master Builders—an organisation to be taken very seriously—expressed its concern that 11,400 jobs would be lost in the construction sector alone over the next decade as a direct result of the coalition’s decision to hike VAT to 20%. The impact of VAT must be kept under review.

Household income in the north-east is the lowest in England, and a temporary reduction in VAT would have a positive impact on the spending power of people living in my city and region, helping to support local businesses, local economic growth and local jobs. Such a reduction could not come at a more apposite time, given that my region is facing the policies of what Kevin Rowan, the regional secretary of the Northern TUC, has recently described as a “profoundly anti-Northern Government”.

That is a description I would agree with, in the light of the impact of some of the coalition’s policies highlighted by Mr Rowan. They include the abolition of One North East and the planned sale of its assets to finance national Government administration—something that is not happening in London. Furthermore, job creation is simply not keeping up with job losses, with up to 19 jobseekers applying for every vacancy in some areas of the region. The north has the highest unemployment rates in the UK, and it is seeing cuts in disability benefits that will have a disproportionate impact on former industrial heartlands, as well as cuts in tax credits, the abolition of area-based grants and local government cuts significantly higher than those in many councils in the south-east. It is for those reasons that I support the proposal for the Government to undertake an assessment of the impact on UK growth of the rise in the rate of VAT.

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[Nia Griffith]

The whole point of an active Government who take an interest in re-igniting the economy was absolutely that—to create jobs and ensure wealth creation so that we would be in a better position to pay back quickly—

[Ian Swales]

Can the hon. Lady confirm that she is now proposing a cut in VAT and car scrappage schemes and other measures to stimulate the economy? Or is she offering a choice?

[Nia Griffith]

I am asking about the Government’s growth strategies. I am trying to explain by giving some examples of how Governments can stimulate the economy and make a difference. They can choose to kick-start the economy or to allow it to go spiralling down and unemployment to increase. These are active choices that a Government can make. We are asking in our new clause for a proper assessment of the effect of the increase in VAT on what is happening now in the economy.